The heat wave makes climbing Mont Blanc very dangerous. Now shelters are closed. The mayor of Saint-Gervais even wants to ask adventurers to pay bail.
Mont Blanc (centre) as seen from Chamonix, with the Dôme du Goûter to the right and the Aiguille du Goûter to the far right.
The heat also makes for difficult and dangerous conditions on Mont Blanc. Rock falls, rock falls, snow slabs and opening crevasses make the ascent to the highest peak in the Alps at 4807 meters a high-risk undertaking. Since mid-July, the French authorities and mountain guides from Chamonix and Saint-Gervais have been warning against Mont Blanc tours on the main route. The French mountain guides no longer offer such tours. It is said that the danger of falling rocks and falling rocks is too great.
Apparently, some alpinists don’t care about the warnings. As the President of the Chamonix Mountain Guides Association, Olivier Grébert, told the AFP news agency, around 20 people are still attempting the ascent every day. For comparison: Under normal circumstances, over a hundred are often counted.
Russian roulette
The mayor of Saint-Gervais-les-Bains, Jean-Marc Peillex, is particularly annoyed by the gamblers: Anyone who wants to go to the summit now is playing Russian roulette, he writes in a statement.
For example, on July 30, the mountain police had to ask five Romanian adventurers “in shorts, sneakers and straw hats” from the helicopter to return immediately. And on August 4th, 79 mountaineers, mainly from Eastern European countries, visited the “Refuge du Goûter” hut on the normal route at an altitude of 3835 meters. The couloir at the hut is extremely dangerous because of the practically permanent falling rocks, he warned. Rocks as big as cars are currently falling off.
Huts on the normal route will be closed
Now the authorities seem to have had enough. In consultation with the prefecture and the mountain guides, the mayor of Saint-Gervais has decided to close the Tête Rousse and Goûter refuges, as he said in a announcement of August 5th. This should completely prevent summit ascents on the normal route. “It is sad that we are being forced to make such a decision by a few warhorses,” writes Mayor Peillex.
He also wants to ask daredevil hobby alpinists to pay. He suggests that climbers must post a hefty deposit of €15,000 before attempting the dangerous ascent. This should cover the costs if they had to be rescued or, in the worst case, had to be recovered dead. Taxpayers shouldn’t have to bear these costs, writes Peillex. However, he conceded himself that such a bail would be legal would be difficult to enforce.
Little enthusiasm on the Italian side
On the Italian side of Mont Blanc, the suggestion of a bail has met with little enthusiasm. The mayor of Courmayeur, Roberto Rota, designates him compared to the «Corriere della Sera» as «surreal». The mountain is not owned and the municipalities can only inform about dangerous routes and block paths if there is an objective risk. Rota also pointed out that promotion from the Italian side was much more difficult. In Saint-Gervais there are often entire columns of alpinists. That is not the case in Courmayeur.